Environmental Health in Israel | 2014

levels of exposure to organophosphates were instrumental in directing policy with regard to reduction of agricultural use of organophosphates, while data on exposure to ETS were instrumental in support of implementation of smoke-free legislation in Israel.  There has been significant progress recently in the field of biomonitoring in Israel, and much biomonitoring data will be generated by the studies currently underway. In addition, the MoH has plans to continue biomonitoring as part of the 2014–2015 National Nutrition and Health Survey (urinary cotinine and urinary organophosphate metabolites in 300 children and adults). However, to date, there is no long-term plan for biomonitoring in Israel, including target populations, target chemicals, and planned uses of biomonitoring data for public health/environmental health policy.  Due to the absence of laboratories in Israel with proven capacity to measure low-level exposure to environmental contaminants in biological samples, human biomonitoring studies in Israel have increasingly relied on collaboration with foreign laboratories. This substantially increases the cost of human biomonitoring studies in Israel.  Regional biomonitoring projects, such as the DEMOCOPHES study in 17 European countries, have focused on developing a harmonized approach to biomonitoring. Joining such a regional or international harmonization effort would advance the field of biomonitoring in Israel considerably and would allow for better data comparability. - 61 - Biomonitoring